Tolerance is the acquired lack of responsiveness to an antigen to which an immune response would normally occur. Typically, to induce tolerance, there must be an exposure to a tolerizing antigen, which results in the death or functional inactivation of certain lymphocytes. Complete tolerance is characterized by the lack of a detectable immune response, either antibody or cell mediated, to the second antigenic challenge. Partial tolerance is typified by the quantitative reduction of an immune response.
The function of the immune system is to eliminate foreign bodies which may contain pathogens, and to maintain unresponsiveness or tolerance against self antigen. T cell tolerance is achieved 1) in the thymus where thymocytes reactive for self-peptides are eliminated by clonal deletion (central tolerance), and 2) in the periphery by exposure to self-antigens under tolerogenic conditions (peripheral tolerance).
Unfortunately, the immune system does not distinguish beneficial intruders, such as transplanted tissue, from those that are harmful, and thus the immune system rejects transplanted tissue or organs. Rejection of transplanted organs is significantly mediated by alloreactive T cells present in the host which recognize donor alloantigens or xenoantigens.
At present, patients rejecting transplants are treated with powerful immunosuppressive drugs. The infusion of individuals with drugs that prevent or suppress T-cell immune response does inhibit transplant rejection, but can also result in general immune suppression, toxicity and even death due to opportunistic infections. Because of the toxicity and incomplete response rate to conventional treatment of donor tissue rejection, alternative approaches are needed to treat patients who cannot withstand or do not respond to current modes of drug therapy.
Accordingly, there is a need for the reduction or elimination of an unwanted immune response by a host to a transplant as a method to avert host rejection of donor tissue. Also advantageous would be a method to eliminate or reduce an unwanted immune response by a donor tissue against a recipient tissue, known as graft-versus-host disease.
It has been reported that human gingival fibroblasts, when both treated with IFN-γ and contacted with T cells, are ineffective stimulators of alloreactive peripheral T cells and inhibited a proliferative response of allogeneic antigen presenting cells or mitogen stimulated cells. (Shimabukuro, Y. et al., Immunology 76:344-347 (1992)).